Overview
Is Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution under Hugo Chávez truly revolutionary? Most books and articles tend to view the Chávez government in an either-or fashion. Some see the president as the shining knight of twenty-first-century socialism, while others see him as an avenging Stalinist strongman. Despite passion on both sides, the Chávez government does not fall easily into a seamless fable of emancipatory or authoritarian history, as these essays make clear. A range of distinguished authors consider the nature of social change in contemporary Venezuela and explore a number of themes that help elucidate the sources of the nation's political polarization. The chapters range from Fernando Coronil's ""Bolivarian Revolution,"" which examines the relationship between the state's social body (its population) and its natural body (its oil reserves), to an insightful look at women's rights by Cathy A. Rakowski and Gioconda Espina. This volume shows that, while the future of the national process is unclear, the principles elaborated by the Chávez government are helping articulate a new Latin American left.
Full Product Details
Author: Thomas Ponniah ,
Jonathan Eastwood ,
Francisco Armada ,
Haejoo Chung
Publisher: Harvard University, The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Imprint: Harvard University, The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.544kg
ISBN: 9780674061385
ISBN 10: 0674061381
Pages: 344
Publication Date: 01 July 2011
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This excellent book makes an important contribution to the scholarly debate on the meaning of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution since the democratic election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in 1998. While some scholars depict the Chavez regime as autocratic and undemocratic, others view Chavez's Venezuela as embodying 21st-century participatory democracy and socialism. Eastwood and Ponniah have assembled a collection of high-quality, well-researched essays in an attempt to overcome the polarized nature of academic debates on Chavez's Venezuela...This pathbreaking book shows that the Venezuelan experience with 21st century socialism transcends the country's borders by planting the seeds of an alternative modernity. -- M. E. Carranza Choice 20120201
Author Information
Thomas Ponniah is Lecturer and Assistant Director of Studies in the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, and Faculty Associate in the Program on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, Harvard University. Jonathan Eastwood is Boetsch Associate Professor of Sociology at Washington & Lee University.
